What follows is long — the video runs about an hour — but one of its many pleasures is hearing Knopfler talk. A beautiful sample of his conversation comes early on — right after the first song, at about 7:15. Thoughts about the guitar, giving songs what they want, and nurturing the connection between the music and the listener. Juicy stuff.

The post title, by the way, comes from another one of those breaks — you’ll get the context at about 31:10.

If you stick it out to the end (or skip ahead) you’ll get a lovely, quiet performance of the song that knocks me out every time I hear it: “Brothers in Arms.”

And with that, good evening, all…as cocktail hour approaches, may we may be nicer to each other than I hope Team Obama will be to Team Romney.😉